Corpus-Paul

[Ronald Troxel <rltroxel AT facstaff.wisc.edu>]

>On 4/6/99 1:29 PM, Sheila E. McGinn, Ph.D. (smcginn AT jcu.edu) wrote:
>I am not sure that Paul was 'strongly influenced by Stoicism" in his
>ethics as much as it was that these ideas, concepts, and esp langauge
>constructs were floating around the Hellenistic world. I wrote a paper on
>the prayers of Stoicism about a year ago, and came to the conclusion
>that, while Paul may have employed similar langauge to Stoicism, and
>maybe drew from some of the same concepts, his thinking is primarily
>jewish/OT - certainly his ethics are the same (of course, one needs to
>then determine if the Judaism of Paul was infleunced by stoicism).

This is a salient point.  The example that jumps to mind happens to be not
from Paul but from the assertion of 2 Peter 3:7 that (parallel to the
earlier judgment by flood) "the present heavens and earth have been
reserved for fire."  One might be tempted to associate this with the Stoic
"doctrine" of bi-millenial fiery renewal, and yet the idea of parallel
judgments by water and fire is attested in Josephus (Antiquities I.70) and
Life of Adam and Eve (49.3).  Thus, ideas articulated by Stoics (and
others) frequently percolated throughout the Mediterranean basin and
surfaced in different forms.  (Similarly, today it is possible to take "a
leap of faith" without knowing Kant's name!)

Ron Troxel

Ronald L. Troxel, Ph.D.
Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies
1340 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI 53706